Josh Kerr was expecting one of the “most vicious and hardest 1500 metres” in recent memory as he clashed with bitter rival Jakob Ingebritsen in Paris.
However, Cole Hocker went over the top of them both as he grabbed a shock gold, with Kerr having to settle for silver – one a number of places for Team GB on day 11 in Paris.
The men’s sprint team was happy with silver against the dominant Netherlands team in the velodrome, while Sky Brown defied injury issues to take bronze in the skateboard park competition.
With five days left to go, we look back at the latest British Olympic achievements.
Hocker shocker
Kerr claimed 1500m silver after the United States’ Hocker stormed to a shock gold in Olympic record time.
The Stade de France final was billed as the showdown of the century between the world champion Scotsman and his arch nemesis Ingebrigtsen, the Tokyo 2020 gold medallist.
The Norwegian quickly saw himself in front and held the lead into the final lap, when Kerr made his move along the back straight.
Just as it looked like Great Britain might have their second gold medal on the track, Hocker surged forward to snatch the title away as American Yared Nuguse claimed bronze, with Ingebrigtsen fourth.
Silver lining
Jack Carlin, Ed Lowe, and Hamish Turnbull won Olympic men’s team sprint silver for Great Britain as pre-race favourites the Netherlands broke the world record twice on their way to gold.
In a repeat of the result from the Tokyo Games, the Dutch trio of Harrie Lavreysen, Jeffrey Hoogland and Roy van den Berg retained their title, breaking their own world record in the first round and then again in the final, winning in a time of 40.949 seconds
Although beaten in the final, there were smiles and celebrations from the British squad, who had been well aware of the task they faced against this all-conquering Dutch team, who have won the world title in five of the last six years.
Bronze for Brown
Brown defied a shoulder injury to claim a bronze medal for Britain at the women’s skateboard park competition at La Concorde.
Brown matched her bronze medal in Tokyo with a score of 92.31 in her second of three runs to cap a remarkable comeback having dislocated her shoulder last month.
The 16-year-old had also been close to tears after appearing to aggravate the injury during the qualifying competition, in which she was placed fourth with a score of 84.75 but fell heavily during the last of her three runs.
A tearful Brown had vowed to “fight through” the pain, and she rose from fourth place after her first run into serious medal contention.
A huge run from Australia’s Arisa Trew lifted the Australian into first place with Brown sitting second until the last skater, Cocona Hiraki, who also pipped her to silver in Tokyo at the age of 12, edged in front.
Fell at the last
After a fantastic equestrian programme that yielded five medals for Team GB, the jumpers suffered a rare reversal in the concluding event, the individual jumping final.
Team competition heroes Scott Brash, Ben Maher and Harry Charles were all set to shoot for solo gold, but a minor setback for Romeo 88 saw the last-named rider withdrew.
Brash and Maher, who was the defending champion, each had a fence down seeing them finish sixth and ninth respectively, as German Christian Kukuk got the best of a three-way jump off.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here